While I admire her composure, I would never have pretended everything was fine while my country was being insulted. Not that I would throw a fit or anything, but, instead of keeping hand over heart, I would have crossed my arms and a very stern expression. Just enough to get people wondering what the heck was wrong and, possibly, an apology and a correction at the time.

While I admire her composure, I would never have pretended everything was fine while my country was being insulted. Not that I would throw a fit or anything, but, instead of keeping hand over heart, I would have crossed my arms and a very stern expression. Just enough to get people wondering what the heck was wrong and, possibly, an apology and a correction at the time.

It's quite obvious that something's wrong, though. She's blatantly uncomfortable and you can see her relief when it finishes. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people wondered what was happening.

Not sure how that happened, or why organisers were downloading anthems off the internet (surely there's some sort of official database for that?), but it does seem to have been a genuine mistake.

I don't see how, given the lyrics, someone didn't realize there was a mistake very early on and stop it. An awkward stop and silence while they worked on getting the right song would've been a vast improvement over listening to that dreck.

I maintain that this is a far worse event that those who simply had the wrong anthem played. Those are mistakes. Intentional or not, this was a slap in the face.

I tend to agree. Accidentally playing "God BLess America" instead of the National Anthem would be a mistake but not insulting. Even the wrong county's anthem - assuming it wasn't a country you were at were with or that was diametrically opposed to your nation's political views.

Not sure how that happened, or why organisers were downloading anthems off the internet (surely there's some sort of official database for that?), but it does seem to have been a genuine mistake.

Well, they could hardly admit that, "We gave the job of getting the anthems to a junior staffer who claims he just searched for "Kazakh anthem" and didn't have the faintest clue who Cohen was (nor anything about copyright, obviously), but was smirking like the cat that ate the canary during the presentation, until he saw us looking at him."

I'm sure that the organizers didn't set out to humilate this woman and offend a nation specifically. However, they were at best incredibly careless, and at worst allowed themselves to be punk'd by a staff member who thought this was hysterically funny.

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She didn't act as though nothing was wrong. She removed her hand and just stood silently while they played the song. I am sure she thought removing her hand would signal to someone that something was wrong. And given the lyrics I don't understand how they couldn't have known. It almost seems like they did this on purpose.

Well, the event was held in Kuwait, so there is the possibility that the organizers were not native English speakers, and didn't figure out the lyrics quickly enough to stop things.

If they relied on "downloading from the internet" (presumably without any consideration of whether the music was royalty-free), it doesn't speak highly of their professionalism. Even an "honest" mistake indicates that they were incredibly sloppy, as well as music pirates.

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Well, they could hardly admit that, "We gave the job of getting the anthems to a junior staffer who claims he just searched for "Kazakh anthem" and didn't have the faintest clue who Cohen was (nor anything about copyright, obviously), but was smirking like the cat that ate the canary during the presentation, until he saw us looking at him."

If it was a 'lowly staffer' they might not have spoken English. From all descriptions the song was downloaded and not listened to.

I want to know why there isn't an MP3 of all official national anthems so sports bodies can avoid this very mistake.

I don't think there was anything malicious in this song being played I think it was a terrible, terrible mistake. I think the athlete behaved perfectly and much better than I could have in that situation. (tears would have been involved)

Well, the event was held in Kuwait, so there is the possibility that the organizers were not native English speakers, and didn't figure out the lyrics quickly enough to stop things.

If they relied on "downloading from the internet" (presumably without any consideration of whether the music was royalty-free), it doesn't speak highly of their professionalism. Even an "honest" mistake indicates that they were incredibly sloppy, as well as music pirates.

But one would think that the lyrics being in English would have been a big tip off as the official languages of Kazakhstan are Kazakh & Russian which I didn't know & found out in only 30 seconds of googling. Someone needs to have lost their job for this one IMHO.

As to "how could that happen"-----from the little I've had to do in the past with putting together TV productions, I have little doubt everything had to be done very quickly, with the song probably downloaded by a very young/inexperienced staffer with 9,000 other things to do before lunch, and certainly no one designated to listen to all the lyrics of all the anthems of all the possible winners before going live....